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- Thread starter dougk
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Chad
Slender Hobbit
Welcome!
Chad
Slender Hobbit
Beards are lame.
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
What are your feelings on different woods for fingerboards? I heard that you're not a fan of Zebrawood. Any particular reason?
OK, here's a question: why doesn't anyone use oak for solid body guitars? I understand that oak has dimensional stability problems when using long flat pieces, but it seems to me that a neck (or even body) made butcher block style of oak would be unbelievably strong and stiff, leading to increased sustain.
An oak body would be heavy for sure, but could be chambered for lighter weight.
An oak body would be heavy for sure, but could be chambered for lighter weight.
jelloman
Couch'd Tater...
dougk
b00b
Doesn't really matter to much (with in reason). Warm is ideal, hot is almost worst than cold as long as it's not to much moisture in the air. Acrylic can be a more finicky lacquer compared to nitro (nitro seems to have no limit in terms of adding solvents or retarders, acrylic can).
I'm crying on the outside but my beard is absorbing my tears so you can't tell.
I think Zebrawood is really cool actually, just not my bag. Andrew, my employee his Daylighter has a zebrawood fretboard and it's bad ass.
I also feel that people make way to much of a big deal about fretboard wood. My criteria goes as follows (in order of importance)
1. Stability
2. Machinability
3. Visual appeal
4. Sonical appeal
Honestly, I've used a ton including brazilian and it's SUCH a small difference sonically that it's relatively low on the list of important features to me. If you want to break it into speech here's how I describe it:
The body is what you say
The neck is how you say it
The fretboard is 5% regional accent.
Brain May's red special is red oak isn't it? I don't see why you couldn't I think just my 25 years doing cabinet/remodels has me genetically predisposed to FUCKING HATE OAK. BURN ALL OAK KITCHEN CABINETS... sorry I don't know what happened there.
It is heavy, it's got very open grain and not the greatest stability but a chambered oak body would probably sound great.
Do you like egg salad?
Nope.
Chad
Slender Hobbit
I wouldn't know, I never cry so my beard stays nice and dry. Blowing my nose is always a bitch though, the mustache is like a snot trap.
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
Over the past couple weeks I've been working with my first (and last) all Pau Ferro neck. Holy shit that wood eats up bits and sandpaper. I think it's almost easier grinding through a block of brass.
Excellent.
Why aren't zero frets used on guitars any more? They seem to be a simple solution to eliminating quite a bit of work from building a neck.
baimun
Funkasaurus Rex
I'm seeing them again on headless and fanned fret guitars.
I'm told that some people don't like them because the open strings "ring pingy" which seems a little odd because they would ring like every fretted note, but I can say that i hear a difference between open strings with a normal nut and when I use the capo at the first, so I can see having both sounds available as an option being good.
Still Water
Over The Top
Do you like egg salad?
Not yet: I'm looking for the world's best egg salad recipe.
dougk
b00b
Over the past couple weeks I've been working with my first (and last) all Pau Ferro neck. Holy shit that wood eats up bits and sandpaper. I think it's almost easier grinding through a block of brass.
Excellent.
I can only imagine. I did an all Cocobolo neck once, looked amazing, felt amazing, sounded like absolute shit IMO. Sent me down the road to where I'm at now and I have a VERY backwards opinion about neck properties and tone than most luthiers or the internets establishment.
I think they have a few things going against it:
1. People think it's old fashioned (I've learned the hard way, a guitar you have to explain is a guitar you aren't going to be selling)
2. They do wear quicker than the rest of the frets. Every tuning session, bend ect is dragging that string across the fret (unlike the rest).
3. They don't really save any hassle, you still have to make a nut or string retainer of some sort anyways
4. When the wear out, you're essentially doing a fret job again.
dougk
b00b
Make the zero fret out of stainless steel
Actually, I'm considering taking my Steinberger in to have that done. I don't need the rest of the frets replaced, I just want the zero fret redone in SS.
That is the best way to do a zero fret. It will eventually wear into it some but it'll take 10x or 100x longer.
Highernoon
Burninator
What's the difference between thinline, semi-hollow and chambered bodies?
dougk
b00b
name.
LOL
Honestly, there's really no rhyme or reason to it. We call our chambered model our 'semi hollow' because chambered gets a bad wrap. Otherwise it's really builder discretion.
Highernoon
Burninator
I don't know if I should feel relieved or deceived 
dougk
b00b
I don't know if I should feel relieved or deceived
Don't feel deceived, it's all basically the same thing.
I guess it's no different than saying "Oh my Honda has "Auto-Start" .. "yeah well my Chevy has "assisted-start" or some other BS feature that every car has but everyone calls it by their own name to sound different.
A thinline to me typically is a flat top, chambered or mostly semi hollow 1.75" (or less) thick guitar.
A semi hollow to me is typically a carved top hollowbody with either a full center block or partial center block with internally carved (or molded) top/back.
A chambered to me is a carved top with a semi hollow body but no carving inside the top.